66 A Tale of Indian Heroes
And Bhima with a lighted torch stole to where Pooroo slept, and lit the wall behind him. And lo ! it blazed up like a torch itself. But Bhima with a shout leapt from the room, and in a trice was in the subterranean passage where his mother and brothers awaited him fearfully. Then they ran, and as they ran they could hear the palace crackling like thorns above them, and the smoke of the fixe filled their nostrils and made them fly faster.
Now overhead the blazing palace showed like a fire of straw, so fierce was the glare, so quickly it died down, leaving nothing but ashes and a few bones; for, as it so happened, a wandering beggar accompanied by her five grown-up sons, having come into the feasting and having become intoxicated with wine, and so, unable to walk, had lain down to sleep in the arcades of that palace, where, the fire overtaking them unconscious, they perished miserably. Thus the populace crowding around the spot found the bones of these folk, and mourned loudly saying :
" Lo ! Here is all that is left of five great heroes and their great mother ! "
Now when the news was brought to Hustina-pura, Dritarasta the King ordered that the bones should be sanctified by the usual rites, and that money should not be spared in the funeral obsequies. And all wept and bewailed the Panda va Princes outwardly, though the partisans of Yudistra did not fail to say:
" This is ill done ! This is Duryodana's work ! "
Yet he himself was disturbed by doubts because his minion Pooroo had been burnt likewise ; so his wickedness lacked perfect success, and he still tormented himself with his evil thoughts.
Only the learned Vidura did not weep much